﻿In 2006, the incredibly popular show Dexter began airing, a show starring Michael C.
Hall which featured a forensic technician working for the Miami Police Department
that helped them solve crimes and catch killers, while also doubling as a vigilante serial killer
who hunted down murderers. The show would gain considerable amounts of fame and go
onto air for another seven years, however, unbeknownst to the creators behind the show,
it was also slowly but surely inspiring a no-name independent director to indulge in his darkest
desires. In today’s video, we’ll be diving into the story of Mark Twitchell, a would-be
serial killer inspired by Dexter who planned on writing a story about his own murders.
Mark Twitchell was born July 4th, 1979, in Edmonton, Alberta. His childhood was
average by all accounts and we came from a well-adjusted family, but from a young age,
Mark developed a love for films that quickly grew into an urge to create films himself.
In his early adulthood, Mark attended the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and graduated from
their Radio and Television Arts Program in 2000. Students who knew him at the time later reported
that he was a loner type during school, however, he did have a small group of friends, one of whom
was a man named Drew Kenworthy. According to later interviews with Drew, Mark seemed like a fine guy,
but he didn’t trust him. Mark was apparently a horrible classmate who repeatedly failed to do
his part when it came to group projects, and would also frequently lie, a trait that would show up
again later in his interviews with police. The year after he graduated Mark met and married an
American woman, however, the marriage would fail and the two would get divorced by 2004.
Following his divorce, Mark began to dive into the world of independent filmmaking. In 2007,
Mark directed a full-length Star wars fan-film entitled Star Wars: Secrets of the Rebellion,
and even featured a cameo from Jeremy Bulloch, whom hard-core Star Wars fans will know as the
actor that played Boba Fett. According to those who worked with Mark on set it truely seemed like
a real functioning Hollywood set, with many believing that Mark could have possibly had a
real chance at a future in the filmmaking industry. The movie entered post-production,
but was never released, as well as Mark’s next film, Day Players, which was financed but never
filmed or finished. After becoming an extreme fan of the Dexter TV Show in the summer of 2008,
Mark worte, directed, and produced an eight-minute short horror film titled “House of Cards”, which
featured a killer who lures a man off an online dating site in order to kill him in a garage,
a description which will sound incredibly familiar in a moment. Following the creation of this horror
short film, Mark decided he wanted to try the real thing, and become a serial killer like
Dexter. He started an account on an online dating website called “Plenty of Fish”, and pretended to
be a woman named Sheena, with the intention of cat-fishing and luring guys to his garage where
he planned on brutally murdering them. Mark’s first target was a man named GIles
Tetreault, and after chatting with him for a bit on the dating app Mark was able to convince Giles
to come pick him up for a date on the third of October, 2008. Giles arrived at the house and
approached the garage in search of “Sheena”, as he had been instructed to do previously. However,
when he arrived inside the garage he didn’t find “Sheena”, but instead was attacked by Mark
wearing a hockey mask, and was bludgeoned with a stun baton. Mark was able to blindfold Giles,
however, running on pure adrenaline, Giles was able to break free of Mark’s grasp and make an
escape. Unfortunately, the hits from the stun baton had made it difficult to control his legs
and he struggled to run away fast. Instead, Giles chose to call out for help and get the attention
of strangers, at which point Mark decided the best course of action was to pretend that this
was all a big game and claim that he was just playing around. This excuse didn’t exactly sell,
however this did allow for Giles to get into his car and leave with his life intact. According to
a book that GIles would go on to write titled “The One That Got Away”, he didn’t report this
incident to the police because Mark threatened to come back and finish the job if he did. Thus,
the crime went unreported and Mark was free to try his devious plan again.
Exactly a week after the failed attack “Sheena” convinced another man to come by the garage
to meet her, this time the prospective victim was thirty eight year old John Brian “Johnny”
Altinger. Unlike with Giles, Johnny was somewhat nervous to meet an internet stranger in real life,
and so he made sure to tell some friends that he was going to meet up with a woman he had been
talking to online, telling them “She’s home now. I’m heading over again! HEHE!”. Johnny arrived
at the house and texted Mark to let him know, and received a text informing him that his “date” was
waiting for him in the garage. When Johnny entered the garage he was met with a sight straight out of
a horror movie. The garage was dark, with a large and heavy metal table the size of a pool table set
up in the center of the room. Covering the table as well as the entire room there were large,
semi-transparent plastic sheets which were there to catch any blood spatter.
Similarily to Giles, Mark ambushed Johnny once he was inside the garage, this time choosing
to bludgeon him with a heavy metal pipe. Johnny writhed in agony and begged Mark to spare him,
offering him money and silence in exchange for his life. Mark baited Johnny into thinking he was
going to let him go before curelly stabbing him in the gut with a hunting knife. He then sliced open
Johnny’s jugular and let him bleed to death on the the garage floor, away from the plastic sheeting
he had put up, letting blood pool and smear ont he garage floor. After Johnny’s death, Mark hefted
him up onto the metal table before grabbing a game processing kit which included a butcher’s knife, a
fillet knife, a skinner, and a serrated saw. Mark proceeded to cut Johnny’s legs off at the knees,
decapitate his head, cut his torso in two at the diaphragm, and slice off his arms at the elbow.
The body parts were then thrown into bags and placed into large drums at a later date which were
eventually lit on fire. This method of disposal was insufficient for Mark, and he then decided
to cut up Johnny’s remains into little pieces with the intention of dumping them into a river. Mark
returned the next day and slowly and methodically shaved pieces of flesh off of Johnny’s severed
limbs before knocking out the teeth on the decapitated skull to try and avoid dental
recognition. He then finally drove the pieces to a bridge and chucked them into the river.
In an attempt to cover up Johnny’s mysterious disappearance,
Mark pretended to be Johnny and sent an email to Johnny’s friends, which read:
“Hey There, I’ve Met an extraordinary woman
named Jen who has offered to take me on a nice long tropical vacation. We’ll be staying in her
winter home in Costa Rica, phone number to follow soon. I won’t be back in town until December 10th
but I will be checking my email periodically. See you around the holidays,
Johnny” This email was incredibly suspicious,
and Johnny’s friends were instantly concerned the moment they read it, as not only did it not
sound like their friend’s writing, it was also an extremely rash and illogical thing for him to do.
Mark also sent a similarly weird and vague email of resignation to Johnny’s job, however Johnny
obviously failed to pick up his final paycheck, which led to further suspicions. With Johnny’s
friends and family becoming extremely worried for him, they decided to break into his apartment.
It was there that they found not only had he left dirty dishes in the sink, left his passport,
and hadn’t packed at all for the several month trip he was supposedly taking.
The police were soon involved and they were able to track down Johnny’s connection with
Mark easily, as Johnny had sent one of hisf friends the exact address of where he was going.
When the police arrived to question Mark, he attempted to play dumb bby saying he had no
idea who Johnny Altinger was, however this bluff was easily seen through and he was
swiftly placed under custody on October 31st, 2008. Alongside their interrogations of Mark,
the police also searched through his belongings and found a fourty three page document on Mark’s
computer titled “SK Confessions”, or “Serial Killer Confessions” which was a detailed story
Mark was writing on his fall into madness and depravity. In the disturbing document he went into
excruciating detail about how he lured, killed, and disposed of Johnny. The document began with
“This story is based on true events. The names and events were altered slightly to protect the
guilty. This is the story of my progression into becoming a serial killer.” While this sentence
alone seems like it would be enough to incriminate someone, it got worse the farther in Mark wrote.
At one point he even went into detail about how he had played with Johnny’s decpaitated head before
knocking out the teeth, moving his mouth and using voices to make it seem like Johnny was talking.
With the evidence stacked up against him, it was no surprise when Mark was convicted of
first-degree murder of Johnny’s death, and he was sentenced to life in prison without
the possibility of parole for twenty five years on April 12th, 2011, around three years after
his initial arrest. The police eventually learned about the attempted murder of Giles Tetreault and
Mark was tried for an attempted murder charge, however since Mark had already been given the
maximum sentence for his first-degree murder charge, the charge was dropped.
Mark has since spent his life behind bars, however he did make a statement some time later
telling everyone that while in prison he caught up on all the Dexter episodes he had missed.
What are your thoughts about this case? Be sure to let us know down in the comment section below,
and be sure to tell us about any other cases you’d like us to cover in future videos. If you
enjoyed the video then consider liking the video, subscribing to the channel, and ringing that bell
icon so you can be notified whenever we upload a new video, and we’ll see you in the next one.